Construal Of Interactive Meaning In Multimodal Print Commercial Advertisements

Multimodal discourse analysis is a comprehensive study of the ways in which enhanced meaning emerges through the interaction of more than one mode of communication.It is the extension of Systemic Functional Grammar(SFG for short)to the other area of non-verbal semiotic studies.Print commercial advertisement(hereinafter PCA)is a typical multimodal discourse with the involvement of image and language.However,most of the previous studies mainly focus on the features of language in PCAs,while overlooking the exploration of image.The publication of Visual Grammar(VG for short)put forward by Kress and van Leeuwen makes the multimodal analysis of advertisement discourses possible.The present study aims to investigate how the verbal mode and visual mode construct the interactive meaning of PCAs respectively and how the two interact with each other to produce an overall effect of PCAs in affecting the potential customers within the framework of Halliday's SFG and Kress and van Leeuwen's VG.The data of this study are collected from well-known advertisement websites of different kinds of commodities:https://www.apple.com,https://www.lenovo.com,https://www.mcdonalds.com,http://www.bmw.com,https://www.adidas.com,etc.With both quantitative and qualitative methods employed,this study of 60 PCAs(30 Chinese PCAs and 30 English PCAs)aims to address the following three research questions:(1)How is the interactive meaning realized through the verbal mode in PCAs?(2)How is the interactive meaning realized through the visual mode in PCAs?(3)How do the verbal mode and visual mode work together to construe the overall interactive meaning in PCAs?The major findings of the study are as follows:(1)Mood,modality and person system in the verbal mode play an important role in constructing the interactive meaning of PCAs;(2)Four dimensions of visual images including contact,perspective,social distance,and modality are carefully designed to realize the interactive meaning of PCAs;(3)The verbal semiotic mode and the visual semiotic mode either reinforce or complement each other in constructing the overall interactive meaning of PCAs.This study supports the feasibility of Multimodal Discourse Analysis(MDA)theories in interpreting PCAs as well as the applicability of Visual Grammar in analyzing both Chinese and English discourses.It is also conducive to producing better advertisements for ads producers and providing a new perspective to appreciate advertisements for readers.Limitations of the present study are pointed out and suggestions for further research are finally offered.Owing to the complex and multi-faceted nature of commercial advertisements,the present study only deals with the static images and verbiage of print commercial advertisements,which is not sufficient enough to explore the dynamic multimodal discourses.Therefore,future studies about dynamic multimodal discourses such as how sound,actions and other semiotic resources work together to construct interactive meaning should be taken into consideration.